Reflections On Worship from 8/27/20
August 28, 2020
Dear Friends,
It was a gift to be with you yesterday morning at mid-week, mid-morning worship today. As worship broke up and folks began to part, a request was made that we send the links and information from the chat out to folks. What follows is an email with information from the Message Lisa presented in the meeting, as well as the information in the chat.
In framing worship Lisa shared the following:
Three Rivers Meeting is located on the unceded lands of the Massachusett and Wampanoag Peoples. Starting in 1630 with the arrival of the Puritans, almost all of Massachusett and Wampanoag lands were stolen. Conversion to Christianity and assimilation to white/European culture and practices were required of the surviving members of the Massachusett and Wampanoag Peoples. We recognize that since our first Quaker ancestors arrived in 1656, we, as a Religious Society, have participated in and benefited from this colonization. We also recognize the centuries of resistance and cultural preservation & reclamation by the Massachusett and Wampanoag Peoples, continuing through today. At the end of this worship, we will name some ways that each of us can actively support current Indigenous-led efforts to reclaim stolen lands, remove racist imagery from our state flag, and support work to heal from the cultural genocide Quakers and white people have enacted.
We named this Meeting Three Rivers in honor of the watershed in which we live. While many of us know the rivers as the Mystic, Charles, and Neponset, this morning we recognize these bodies of waters by their Indigenous names:
The Missi Tuck – the great tidal river
The Quinobequin – the meandering river in the center
The Neponset – there, where there is a crossing
In her Bible Half Hour a few weeks ago at New England Yearly Meeting, Cherice Bock invited us into an Eco Reformation that seeks to heal the damage done by settler-colonialism. Within the settler-colonial worldview, land is something we live on and exploit. Within eco reformation, as within many Indigenous understandings, the land is something we are a part of and embedded within. As we settle into worship this morning, we repeat Cherice’s query to us:
Holding our part in the history and current reality of colonization of this land – what does it mean to live embedded in the land? We invite you to consider this query not as an intellectual one, but as a spiritual and physical one whose answer requires witness inwardly and outwardly.
In response to the query, and as suggestion for embodied action - the following resources were shared as ways to take action:
Support the Mashpee Wampanoag efforts to keep their traditional lands in trust
Support Wampanoag and Massachusett Peoples reclaim their language
The indigenous group guiding the process of work on many of these issues can be found here
We were also reminded that Land Acknowledgement is most effective when it is combined with action that makes it more than just performative. Our opportunity is to find the work that has life for us, in our watershed, that brings us ever more into Right Relationship.
Three Rivers is energized to continue exploration of living into this Call to Action and Right Relationship. Look for gatherings to dig into the Bible Half Hours and opportunities to unpack concrete ways to take up the Call to Action.